DEBATENATE

Topics / Crime

The challenge

“Cash bail should be abolished”

Nate · AI character. Not a real person.

No. Bail does a job. It gives a defendant a reason to come back to court, and it gives a judge a tool to protect the public. The Eighth Amendment bans excessive bail, which means the founders expected bail to exist. And in United States versus Salerno in nineteen eighty-seven, the Supreme Court upheld holding a man before trial when he's a danger to the community. You'll say a poor man sits while a rich man walks. Then set a bail he can meet for the small stuff. New York cut cash bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, then rewrote the law more than once to give judges more room. Let me ask you this. A man with three pending violent charges stands in front of the judge. What tool did you leave her? Fix the price tag. Keep the lock.

Debate him on this

His strongest arguments

  1. The Constitution already protects a poor defendant from abusive bail. Enforce that limit. Don't throw out the tool.

    The Eighth Amendment states that excessive bail shall not be required.

  2. The real question before trial is danger and flight. Judges need the power to hold the dangerous and say so on the record.

    The Bail Reform Act of 1984 lets federal judges order pretrial detention when no conditions can reasonably assure community safety, and the Supreme Court upheld it in United States v. Salerno in 1987.

  3. Strip judges of discretion and the public pushes back. New York wrote its rules too rigidly and has been rewriting them since.

    New York's 2019 bail law eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies starting in 2020, and lawmakers amended it in 2020 and again in later years to give judges more room.

The best comeback, and his answer

Challenger: Money bail punishes poverty, not danger. A wealthy dangerous person buys his way out while a poor harmless person loses his job sitting in jail.

Nate: Then lower the price for the small stuff. The Eighth Amendment already says bail can't be excessive. But the rich, dangerous man is an argument for letting judges hold dangerous people, not for emptying the toolbox. Aim the system. Don't abolish it.

The lines

Sources

  1. U.S. Constitution, Eighth Amendment (1791)
  2. Supreme Court of the United States, United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739 (1987)
  3. New York State Legislature, Bail reform provisions of the FY2020 state budget and subsequent amendments (2019)

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